Anna Cassel

Anna Maria Augusta Cassel (1860–1937) was a Swedish artist.

Cassel began her art studies at the Technical School in Stockholm completed them at the Stockholm Art Academy. Her paintings depict mainly the landscapes of northern Sweden, Stockholm, and Västmanland. She was one of five members of De Fem, a spiritualist group that met during the 1890s. Other members were Hilma af Klimt, Sigrid Hedman, Cornelia Cederberg, and Matilde N. Also called the Friday Group, they began as an ordinary spiritualist group that received messages through a psychograph (an instrument for recording spirit writings) or a trance medium. They met in each other’s homes and studios. During the Friday Group’s séances spirit leaders presented themselves by name and promised to help the group’s members in their spiritual training; such leaders are common in spiritualist literature and life. Through its spirit leaders the group was inspired to draw automatically in pencil, a technique that was not unusual at that time. When the hand moved automatically, the conscious will did not direct the pattern that developed on the paper, and, in theory, the women thus became artistic tools for their spirit leaders. In a series of sketchbooks, religious scenes and symbols were depicted in drawings made by the group collectively. Their drawing technique developed in such a way that abstract patterns—dependent on the free movement of the hand—became visible.

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 This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Text taken from Revolt They Said​, Andrea Geyer, .